I've been working on improving the AURA testing software for some time, and recently I've been thinking of merging it with a new approach I've been working on for emotive testing.
For anyone who's not aware of the term, emotive testing - or persuasive testing, or PET (Persuasion Emotion Trust) is all about measuring the users emotive response and experience. Basically, think of it like this: Usability is about making something easy to use, but we sometimes also want to evoke certain emotional responses, or to provide certain experiences. A game, for example, could be designed to be easy and usable - but you wouldn't necessarily buy and play it.

Sometimes that emotional experience is relatively simple to envision; for example on a corporate website, you probably want to engender trust and confidence. At other times it can be quite complex; a game may want to intrigue at first, then frustrate and pleasure in equal measures until the final pay-off.

On top of this there is a brand value angle. Even on that corporate website, different corporations will have different brand values, and may want to promote some at different times and in different markets. Canon may want to promote the values of trust, stability and know-how in their investor section, but may want to come across as cutting edge and funky on their newest camera pages.

So I've been working on a methodology to try and capture and measure the emotive experience, and to help with that I'm thinking of embedding it into the AURA software I've created for user testing.